Sunil Nar­ine fi­nal­ly came good with both bat and ball to steer the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers to a 22-run vic­to­ry over the Ja­maica Tallawahs in their Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League matchup at the Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain, on Fri­day night.

Nar­ine struck a rapid 22-ball 46 then bagged two wick­ets for 23 runs as TKR did just enough to keep the hard-hit­ting An­dre Rus­sell from pulling off a come-from-be­hind win for his side.

Rus­sell got three lives on six, 16 and 27 thanks to some slop­py TKR field­ing late on and com­bined with George Work­er in a 67-run fifth-wick­et part­ner­ship. How­ev­er, he even­tu­al­ly de­posit­ed a Jim­my Nee­sham full toss straight in­to the hands of Javon Sear­les at deep mid-off to de­part for 44, in­clud­ing four fours and four six­es, in the fi­nal over and with it went the Tallawahs’ fleet­ing hopes of a win.

Nee­sham then added the wick­et of Shamar Springer (2) to fin­ish with two for 27 as Tallawahs closed on 169-6.

The vic­to­ry was the sec­ond straight for the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons and kept them atop the six-team ta­ble with four points head­ing in­to their last of three ear­ly home games against the St Lu­cia Zouks on Sun­day, be­fore they head out to some away match­es.

Ear­li­er, af­ter TKR open­er Lendl Sim­mons went for an eight-ball 11, it was ini­tial­ly the Sunil Nar­ine show. Af­ter get­ting an ear­ly life on 14 from Gayle, who grassed a ski­er, Nar­ine, who did not come out in his usu­al open­ing spot as he was in the bath­room when the um­pires start­ed the in­nings, was like a man pos­sessed. He hit the white ball to all parts of the oval as he com­piled 46 runs from just 22 de­liv­er­ies, in­clud­ing four fours and three six­es. Medi­um-pac­er Shamar Springer fi­nal­ly got Nar­ine’s prized wick­et when he got him to mist­ime an­oth­er big shot off a slow­er ball and Chad­wick Wal­ton gob­bled up the catch at long-on as TKR stood at 85-2.

Nee­sham, bat­ting hero in the pre­vi­ous match, did not last long this time, as he of­fered a re­turn catch to Steven Ja­cobs for just six runs as TKR stum­bled to 93 for three.

But then young­ster Tion Web­ster took over. The 24-year-old right-han­der shared in two vi­tal part­ner­ships of 47 with Ramdin and an un­bro­ken 51 with skip­per Kieron Pol­lard to steer TKR close to 200 with his first CPL half-cen­tu­ry. Web­ster faced 49 balls and hit sev­en fours and two six­es in his un­beat­en knock of 66.

Pol­lard him­self struck a 21-ball 33 but sur­pris­ing­ly was un­able to clear the bound­ary on the night and was even kept rel­a­tive­ly qui­et by pac­er Os­hane Thomas in the fi­nal over, which went for on­ly eight runs.

In the Tallawahs’ turn at the crease, Glenn Phillips nev­er knew which way Nar­ine was turn­ing the ball in the first over he faced from him and lost his leg stump as he went to flick the last ball, as the vis­i­tors lost their first wick­et with just 15 runs on the board.

Tal­is­man Chris Gayle be­gan to look his usu­al omi­nous self in the sixth over when he belt­ed pac­er Ali Khan back over his head and high in­to the stands to si­lence the home fans. But go­ing for an­oth­er big hit the very next ball, he was caught by sub­sti­tute field­er Akeal Ho­sein for 28 as Tallawahs slipped to 39 for two.

Rov­man Pow­ell (1) then picked out Khary Pierre at deep mid-wick­et af­ter he loft­ed the fourth ball he saw from Sri Lankan leg-break bowler Seekkuge Prasan­na sky­wards but didn’t have enough pow­er in the shot.

But when Chad­wick Wal­ton (28) al­so holed out to Nar­ine to leave the Tall­wahs strug­gling at 93 for four, Rus­sell strode to the wick­et.

Trou­bled by a shin in­jury he picked up while bowl­ing, Rus­sell start­ed off cau­tious­ly but lived a charmed life as TKR sud­den­ly went off-colour in the field late on.

Rus­sell was first dropped on six by the usu­al­ly safe Nee­sham, then by Prasan­na on 16 af­ter he mist­imed a slog sweep that looped high in­to the air. Ho­sein al­so put Rus­sell down on 27 be­fore Javon Sear­les snapped up the fourth chance he of­fered on the long-off bound­ary.

SUM­MARISED SCORES:

TRIN­BA­GO KNIGHT RID­ERS 191-4 (Tion Web­ster 66*, Sunil Nar­ine 46, Kieron Pol­lard 33*, De­nesh Ramdin 21, Shamar Springer 1/30, An­dre Rus­sell 1/37) v JA­MAICA TALLAWAHS 169-6 (George Work­er 46, An­dre Rus­sell 44, Chad­wick Wal­ton 28, Sunil Nar­ine 2/23, Jim­my Nee­sham 2/27)

Re­sult: TRIN­BA­GO KNIGHT RID­ERS WON BY 22 RUNS